Thank you for having me here today. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the high-frequency rail project.
My name is Yonah Freemark. I hold a Ph.D. in urban studies and have been researching topics related to transportation, land use and housing for 15 years. I speak here as an individual researcher, not as a representative of my employer, the Urban Institute, which does not take positions on specific policies.
In undertaking its rail project, which I will hereafter refer to as HFR, Canada is taking a major step forward in improving train service for the populations of Ontario and Quebec. This comes after decades of underinvestment.
In my research, I have demonstrated that Canada's per capita rail investment has been the lowest of all G7 members in every year but one since at least 1995. In recent decades, its investment levels have been less than half, and sometimes as low as one-tenth, of the levels of those in countries like France, Italy and Japan.
This underinvestment has consequences. Rail ridership in Canada is extremely low compared to that in other G7 nations, with the average Canadian taking an intercity rail trip just once every 10 years. That compares to rail travel in a country like Germany, where the average resident takes 25 intercity rail trips a year.
Lack of rail system use in turn has negative impacts on Canada's society, environment and economy. Unavailability of frequent, rapid and affordable intercity rail access limits the ability of people without a car, with inadequate funds to afford a flight, or living far from an airport to move around the country. It forces residents to travel to airports far from the centre of population. The nation's dependence on flights and cars has resulted in Canada having some of the highest per capita transportation sector carbon emissions in the world—up to three times as high as in peer countries. Poor rail service has limited the ability of Canada's major cities to capitalize on the agglomeration effects of concentrating rail service in the country's downtowns.
The government's proposed HFR project would improve service considerably along the Toronto-Quebec corridor, expanding options for residents of those cities and also for residents of Ottawa, Montreal and other cities along the way.
My review of comparable corridors in other countries shows that rail lines serving similarly large metropolitan areas feature far more frequent rail service than Via provides today, suggesting the benefits of such improvements. Those benefits would be particularly useful in the Toronto-to-Montreal, via Ottawa, section of the corridor, where flights currently dominate the market.
Nonetheless, my examination of evidence from international examples suggests that the HFR project would fail to live up to the full potential of the central segment of the line, whose length and distribution of metropolitan areas is similar to those of the Paris-Marseille, Madrid-Barcelona and Milan-Naples corridors. Thanks to considerable investment in high-speed rail infrastructure to allow travel at speeds up to 300 kilometres per hour, those routes operate at far higher average speeds than those proposed for Canada after the completion of the HFR project.
This difference in average speeds is very important for attracting riders away from polluting, expensive flights. Based on evidence from corridors around the world, the HFR project may be expected to increase the rail share of the market on the Toronto-to-Montreal segment to between 30% and 60%. However, an investment in faster high-speed rail service could expand that market share to 70% to 90%.
High-speed rail service would make most air travel from Toronto and Montreal to Ottawa superfluous. This investment could allow a significant reduction in the number of flights operating in this segment of the corridor and reduce carbon emissions in the process.
I encourage the committee to consider the potential missed opportunity of not investing in a truly rapid high-speed rail service in Canada, particularly along the Toronto-to-Montreal segment via Ottawa.
Thank you. I look forward to discussion with the committee.